


this is right where it begins

by AndreaAnEnigma



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Katara (Avatar), Bisexual Zuko (Avatar), F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Inspired by Music, Past Aang/Katara (Avatar), Past Jet/Katara (Avatar), Past Jet/Zuko (Avatar), Past Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:14:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29567343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaAnEnigma/pseuds/AndreaAnEnigma
Summary: three times Katara and Zuko meet in an inn in Ba Sing Se (and one time they don't)
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 164





	this is right where it begins

**Author's Note:**

> I should be working on LBAT, I know, but this little plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone. I LOVE hotel rooms and the emotional implications of them, and many of my most meaningful experiences have taken place in the neutral ground of hotel rooms. So naturally, this led me to Halsey's first EP Room 93.
> 
> I love "Is There Somewhere" by Halsey, and I think it's such a Zutara song that i can't NOT write a fic with it. Let me know if you like this or hate this in the comments! I would also be open to requests if y'all have other Halsey songs you want turned into zk fics...
> 
> Obviously I don't own ATLA or this Halsey song. Enjoy!

i. _light one up and hand it over_

The first night they’re alone in Ba Sing Se, it’s right after the war. It happens by accident.

Katara didn’t mean to get stuck with Zuko in the Upper Ring during the worst storm of the season, but somehow it makes sense to her. They had just walked—well, more like limped--away from the Agni Kai, and the smell of his burning skin was still fresh in her mind, her torso still sore from the hours spent bent over his unconscious body afterwards, frantically stitching together the torn muscles of his heart and praying to Tui and La for strength. 

From that life-threatening situation to this more mild one, he seemed to be her partner in peril, and she honestly didn’t mind. The celebration in Iroh’s tea shop had been in full swing, and such joy and jubilation felt so foreign to her after all they’d just been through. Katara couldn’t help but feel out of place among the revelry, still shaken, still bruised, still exhausted. That was why she’d stepped out, using the excuse of buying more bath salts even though she’d just picked up a fresh jar.

What she didn’t expect was for Zuko to offer to accompany her, but she didn’t mind his company on the journey. His shy smile and begging eyes, the way he’d been lingering on the fringes of the party, told her he needed the time alone too, and the sympathetic, if a bit suspicious, look Mai gave him as they were leaving told her she knew it too.

“Thanks for walking with me. I know it wasn’t how you wanted to spend your evening,” she said as they stood under an awning, watching the rain.

Zuko lifted a shoulder and let it drop, giving her a small smile. “It’s fine. I’m not really good with crowds, so...this is more bearable than a party.”

Katara nodded, reaching a hand out from under the awning to catch a few raindrops. “I get that. It feels weird, doesn’t it?” 

“To be celebrating the end of a literal war where a ton of people have died and we’re still sorting through the wreckage? Yeah. It does.” Zuko leaned against the wall, staring out at the rain. “After the conference today, it kind of hit me that now things are real. All that stuff we said before the comet, about building a better world? Now we have to actually deliver.”

“That’s no pressure at all.” Katara worried a lip between her teeth as the rain kicked up a notch. “We’re children, Zuko. We almost died. And now we have to keep going, and I don’t know how. I don’t know how to be...this.” She gestured down at her body uselessly because Tui, her skin had felt much too tight over the last few days, and she didn’t know when it would ever stop.

Zuko nodded, flicking his fingers so a tiny flame appeared. He flicked it on and off idly as he thought. “I want someone else to be me so I don’t have to be. Or, I guess I just want someone else to be the Fire Lord because I don’t even know how to be _Zuko yet_ , and maybe I should learn that first before I try to run a country.” He gave a scoff.

“Seems like it would help to know who you are before you have to tell everyone else.” Katara watched the flame he held, and she asked, “Can I feel that?”

He raised his lone brow. “I know we’re fucked up, but I think we’re past the point of me burning you.”

Katara frowned and shook her head. “No, just...like a candle, and that little flame. I used to run my fingers over it, just to see how it would feel.”

He hesitated, his fingers dark, and the rain started to blow towards them, so he just said, “Shield me.”

She did, her back to the rain, and he conjured a tiny flame, and when Katara saw it in his calloused hands, she gave a shiver, not knowing where it came from. With a slightly shaking hand, she took a finger and floated it over the flame, dipping down to feel it lick her fingers. Another tremble racked her spine, and she looked up to see his golden gaze locked on hers. The intensity of it burned even hotter than the flame, and she felt tears welling up behind her eyes that weren’t from pain. It felt like he’d wrapped a hand around her throat, and she knew he could burn her if he wanted, but she trusted him not to, and she didn’t know when she had started to trust him with her life. 

She’d agreed to fight beside him in the Agni Kai without a second thought, and she’d agreed to let him come with her to look for her mother’s killer, even though it meant entering enemy territory with someone who had been her enemy for so long. When had it become so instinctive to trust him to be there for her?

It’s not like she had ever trusted anyone else to do the same, not even the boy she had kissed just a few hours ago.

Katara pulled her hand away from the flame and stared at the slight black that had gathered on her finger. His eyes were still on her when she looked up, and she didn’t feel the least bit shy about taking the tip of her finger in her mouth and running her tongue over it to soothe the skin.

It was his turn to give a full-body shiver, his eyes narrowing and his pupils blown in the flicker of the flame, and she gave a half-smile, pulling her finger out of her mouth and wiping it on her dress. “Thanks for that. I know it was weird, but…”

Zuko swallowed thickly, casting his gaze to the ground, and when he looked back up, his eyes were back to their normal gold. He extinguished the flame. “No worries. It wasn’t weird. Not to me, at least. I know what it’s like, to want to feel something different sometimes.”

Katara nodded. “I just want to unzip my skin sometimes. Step out of it so I don’t have to wear it.” 

Katara wondered if this was too morbid to say out loud. Any of the Gaang would be horrified to hear her say it, but she was just so tired of having to be the sunny bastion of hope she’d been for this whole year.

Zuko just nodded. “My bones hurt, but it’s not a physical hurt, if that makes sense. It’s like they’re too small and I just want to step out of them and go running around as the inner fire that’s supposedly in all firebenders.”

“Just a ball of light, no responsibilities.” Katara sighed. “That’s the life.”

“From public enemy to public figure.” Zuko shook his head ruefully and sighed. “How the fuck are we supposed to follow that?”

“I don’t know, but we have to.” The rain was rushing sideways now, lightning beginning to split the sky, and they both flinched as it did. “There’s no way we’re going to make it back to Iroh’s in this.”

Zuko pointed a few doors down, to a lantern lit under an awning. “There’s an inn that way. We can stay for the night and go back at first light.”

Katara’s pulse spiked at the thought of spending a night with Zuko alone, and she knew she should feel guilty about it. He had Mai, after all, and she had Aang now, she supposed. Their choices weren’t theirs to make right now.

But she wanted, for one night, to not have to think about anyone else. 

“Wanna run for it?” Zuko asked.

Katara smirked. “I’ll race you.”

They took off into the night, the rain and wind at their backs propelling them forward, and Katara felt alive for the first time in what seemed like a decade. The only time she’d felt this charged was when his heart had started beating again under her hands and she knew that finally she had done something right.

Zuko beat her to the awning because of course he did, the speedy stealth master that he was, but Katara got distracted by the sky, the boom of thunder, the crack of lighting. She stopped in the middle of the road, staring up at the swirling clouds. 

Tears spilled down her cheeks before she’d even realized she was crying, and she looked back at Zuko, who had followed her out when he saw her stop. “What are you doing out here?” he called to be heard over the wind as he got closer.

Katara swallowed around the fist in her throat. “I don’t know,” she yelled back. “I don’t know! And I’m scared.”

They were both drenched, and she knew it wasn’t safe to be out here, but she didn’t care, and neither did Zuko, it seemed. His eyes were red, and he said, “Me too. Why did it have to be us? You, me, the rest of the group. Why was it always _us_?”

“Who the _fuck_ let a bunch of kids be the ones to save the world?” Katara screamed into the wind.

Zuko let out a frustrated cry, fire erupting from his mouth into the sky, and Katara yelled too, her frustration turning the rain around her into ice. It dropped to the ground, shattering like broken glass. After, they stood there breaking heavily, their eyes held together by the sheer gravity of their grief, their sadness, their _exhaustion_.

“What do we do now?” she asked finally, trying to steady her breath.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Katara nodded jerkily. The answer was as good as any, and it seemed that they were once again on the same wavelength because he opened his arms at the same time as she barreled toward him.

She pressed herself to his chest and sobbed into his tunic, white-knuckled fists gripping the fabric, and he held onto her like a lifeline, arms wrapped tightly around her. His chest was trembling and shaking, and she could hear the beating of his heart, still steady and loud under her ear despite the roaring storm. The wind whipped her wet hair around, a howling reminder, but she just held onto him tighter, afraid to let go of this moment, afraid to have to start again. 

He was crying too, his arms still pulling her closer like he was trying to shield her from the world by pulling her into his body, and she pressed her palm flat to the scar on his chest. Feeling it shudder beneath her hand, she forced herself to remember that they’d made it out, and for now, that was enough.

In the inn that night, Katara bent them both dry, and Zuko lit a fire in the hearth. They lay side by side, having refused separate rooms or even single rooms with two beds, and neither of them quite knew why, but they could both guess, even if they wouldn’t say it out loud.

“Zuko?” Katara whispered, staring at the ceiling and trying to picture the stars on the other side. 

“Katara?”

“Sometimes I think it would have been easier if we had died, so we wouldn’t have to deal with what it means to live after the war.” 

“Death is easy. Living is the hard part. Take it from someone who died for a minute and had the greatest nap of my life.”

Katara gave a small giggle that bubbled up and turned into a fit of them, and he laughed too, the bed shaking with their movement. “We’re so fucked up.”

“Yeah, we are. But at least we’re not alone.”

Katara turned her head a bit on the pillow to see him smiling a bit at the ceiling, eyes still red-rimmed from their cry outside. She lay her palm out flat beside her, an invitation, and he accepted, dropping his warm hand into hers.

They fell asleep like that, in the neutral territory of the inn, where no one else knew Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe and Fire Lord Zuko were not always happy to be alive.

ii. _white sheets, bright lights, crooked teeth, and the nightlife_

The second night it happens, it’s by choice.

It’s been three years since the war and one since they had last been in Ba Sing Se together. The world peace summit was being held in the Upper Ring this year, and it was obvious what was going to happen when Zuko received Katara’s last letter: _Bring your Best Suit_. You know the one.

The capitalized letters were no coincidence, and her mischievous missive made him smile. In no uncertain terms, he wrote back: _Can’t wait. I’ve been looking for a little Peace Lately._

It might be juvenile and borderline idiotic to be sneaking around this way. They’re the Fire Lord and a Master, both world-famous for better or worse, but Agni, he’d been running himself ragged in the Fire Nation, fighting for peace above board across all the avenues he could, and there was still so much he wanted to accomplish but couldn’t. 

But there was still plenty he could do as the Blue Spirit, and no one knew that better than the Painted Lady.

She was a vision in red, her veil floating delicately around her silhouette, and she glided across the ground. Zuko would think her a ghost if he hadn’t seen the ice dagger in her hand, the way she pressed its cold edge to the jugular of the man he was currently holding up against the wall.

“I’ll ask you again,” she hissed, pushing the blade into his throat until tiny drops of blood came to the surface. “Who is paying you, and why? I need names, and don’t you dare think about lying to me.”

To back her up, the Blue Spirit pushed him harder into the wall and lifted him by the hand he’d clasped around his neck, right below the knife’s edge. The sorry excuse of a man broke, rattling off a list of names followed by a sob, and Zuko snarled under his mask. They were high-ranking Earth Kingdom nobles, most in the government, and his blood boiled at the abuse of power. His fingers tightened around his necks.

“Don’t. He’s not worth it.” 

The Painted Lady’s husky voice, just a pitch lower than the girl under the veil’s, brought him back to the present, and he felt his shoulders loosen just a bit in response. He let the man go, just enough for him to drop to the ground before he set about tying his hands and ankles.

Dropping the bound gang leader on the steps of the nearest Earth Soldier outpost was their last stop for the night, and they nodded to each other in acknowledgment of the night’s end. They didn’t speak as they raced across the rooftops back to their chosen meeting point: a little inn in the Lower Ring that no one would suspect the Fire Lord and Master Katara of staying at. 

The room was cramped and run-down, but the bed looked clean and there was running water, so it would do for now. The Painted Lady reached up to pull the veil off, tossing it onto the wooden dress in the corner along with her hat. When she turned around, it was startling how quickly she became _Katara_ again, with her bright smile and kind eyes, but then again, he’d always known, since they’d revealed their alter egos to each other, that the Painted Lady and Katara weren’t so different. Under the paint, they were the same.

He knew because the Blue Spirit was still inside him too, even as he lifted the mask to smile back. “Nice work.”

“All in a day’s night, I suppose.” Her smile was smug as he set his mask on the dresser with her veil. “You weren’t too bad yourself. Glad to see sitting on a throne for a year hasn’t made you lose your edge.”

Zuko rolled his eyes as he set his swords against the wall. “Oh please. Like you’ve been faring any better, stuck on Appa going from air temple to air temple.”

Her eyes darkened, and he wondered if it was the wrong thing to say. “We’ve both been tied up in other things. Such is our duty, right?” she murmured.

Her voice was hollow, and he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. “Do you have to go back tonight?”

He was not surprised by her answer in the slightest. They hadn’t done this in awhile, but he remembered the routine like the back of his hand. “No. He knew I’d be out late tonight.”

“Where does he think you are?”

Katara’s smile was empty as she turned away, heading to the bathroom. “Healing in the Lower Ring.”

“Close enough to the truth. Does he know you’re with me?”

He didn’t know why he asked, or why it mattered that she said, “No. Does he need to?”

“Toss me your clothes. Let me know when you’re in the bath and I’ll come in.” Zuko heard the sound of running water, and then the unspoken invitation of her dress sailing out of the bathroom, followed by her sandals. He yanked off his shirt, keeping his pants on, before picking up her dress and entering the bathroom when she told him she was ready.

Zuko averted his eyes automatically, though there wasn’t anything to see except her dark shoulders hovering above the water, the soaps she’d added dying it a cloudy lavender, her clavicle wet and shining in the low light of the candles. He avoided her gaze as he crossed to the sink. “Do you need that heated for you?”

“That would be nice, thanks,” was her soft reply.

Hands shaking, he stooped down a bit, catching her eyes as he dipped his hand into the water. Her smile was soft, ethereal in the candlelit glow, and the long strands of her hair floated on the surface of the water around her shoulders. Swirls of steam rose up to them as he warmed the water, and she sighed, her lips parting. 

He swallowed roughly. “That good?”

His voice was raspier than he would’ve liked it to be, and the flicker of amusement in her eyes and the quirk of her lip as she nodded told him she’d definitely noticed. Flushing, he withdrew his hand and turned away, crossing to the sink to fill it as he took the soap and started to scrub the dirt and blood out of her dress.

Every time they went out as the Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady, he washed their clothes while she took the first bath. The first time he had taken her clothes and insisted she bathe first, she’d tried to protest, but he’d held fast, and she’d reluctantly relented. Since then, it had become their little ritual. It was domestic, soft, and so completely at odds with the vigilante work they’d been doing all night. 

Maybe this was why they still did it: to ensure that they were still capable of softness.

Her earlier words coming back to him, Zuko said, “I just don’t want a worried Avatar tearing up the Lower Ring looking for you.”

“He won’t. He doesn’t know about this. The Painted Lady, I mean. He doesn’t know I’m still, well, her.”

He stopped scrubbing, met her eyes in the mirror. “He thinks you quit? Has he met you?”

She gave a soft chuckle that was devoid of humor. “He thinks what he wants to think.”

His brow furrowed. “I thought he was supportive of you. After Jang Hui—”

“He was. For awhile. But then we got together, and we started traveling, and then...He just needs me. He doesn’t want anything to happen to me. That’s all.”

Zuko turned back to his task and wrung out her dress harder than necessary, the water falling into the sink like a tumble of rain. “What about what you need?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she protested. “I do what I like when I can, and he doesn’t need to know about it. Does Mai know every detail of your private life?”

“No, but if she did, maybe we would still be together.” He hung her dress over the towel rack and started to scrub at his shirt, studiously avoiding her gaze.

“You broke up?”

“Yes, we did. Awhile ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.

Her voice sounded hurt, and it pulled at Zuko’s heartstrings. His movements stilled, and he met her eyes in the mirror. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Zuko sighed, scrubbing at a spot of dirt on his shirt. “We’re just not right for each other. I knew it. She knew it. After so long together, it still didn’t work. We’re better as friends anyway.”

“That doesn’t sound evasive at all.”

“Well, it’s what happened,” he snapped.

Katara’s eyes widened in the mirror before they narrowed. “There is no need to yell at me.” She stood up from the bath suddenly, and he barely had time to avert his gaze, blushing to the tips of his ears as he heard her bend the water off herself before reaching for a towel. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s your problem.”

Though she was barefoot, her stomps echoed off the walls as she left the room, and Zuko cursed himself. How could he tell her that the reason he and Mai broke up was because he kept muttering her name in his sleep, having nightmares that Mai couldn’t comfort him from, and sneaking away when he couldn’t sleep to re-read the letters Katara had written him because it reminded him that she was alive and he was alive and they were _here_?

But then again, Katara had always been able to handle his crazy better than anyone else ever had.

Zuko finished his task and took a quick bath, taking the second towel and wrapping it around his waist as he left the bathroom. Katara was at the table setting up the tea set he always brought with him on their visits, and he took that to mean that she was cooling down a bit. He didn’t miss the way Katara’s eyes flashed as they lingered on his bare chest, and he smiled just a bit, crossing the room to change into his sleeping clothes. She averted her eyes as he did, and he made quick work of his tunic and loose pants, coming to the table to join her.

“Thank you for this,” he said, gesturing at the tea set.

“Thanks for washing the clothes.” But that was all she said as she stared up at him with a challenging set to her mouth, waiting for him to speak.

He does. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. Mai and I...it was rough. Exactly for that reason too. I was going through things, and I couldn’t talk to her about it, and she got tired of waiting for me to open up.”

Zuko heated up the tea as Katara drummed her fingers on the table, pink lips pursed. “It’s hard to let down your guard when you’re used to having to defend yourself.”

“Is that why you haven’t told Aang you still do this? Keeping your guard up?”

Katara rolled her eyes. “Of course you’d bring it back to that. We’re talking about you here.”

He poured the tea and sat down, sliding her cup across the table. She nodded her thanks and curled her hand around it. “You can’t expect me to share my relationship problems if you don’t share yours. Out with it.”

Katara sighed. “It feels wrong to talk about him, our problems. To have problems. He’s the Avatar. He’s the last airbender. What problem could I possibly have that would take priority?”

“Isn’t it a trade-off? Passing the burden between yourselves is supposed to make it easier. At least, I think that’s what Mai wanted.” Zuko shook her head. “But I couldn’t let her carry that, not when...not when I wasn’t sure about our relationship in the long term.”

“Long term?” Katara raised an eyebrow as she sipped her tea.

Zuko nodded, tracing the lip of his cup with the tip of his finger. “Marriage. I just...I’m not the same person I was before the war, or right after it, and I didn’t trust her to like everyone I’ll be in the future.”

“I get that.” Katara pressed her lips before giving a long wear exhale. “And I don’t think I trust Aang to do the same, not when...not when I don’t even like the girl I am now.”

“So change it.” 

“I _can’t_. Don’t you get it? I can’t change, or move, or grow because I’m stuck in his shadow, stuck following him around, just stuck. It’s like I’m frozen in time, stuck being the same exact person I was when I started dating, and I’m so sick of me, but I don’t know how to like myself again.” The words ripped themselves from her throat, and her cheeks were flushed with frustration. Her grip on the cup was tight, and there was a thin layer of ice forming on the surface of the once-hot tea. “And now, now…” She cut off, her jaw clenched tight as though trying to hold back the words she wanted to say.

Zuko froze too, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he prompted gently, “And now?”

She bit her lip. Her voice was small. “If I said something kind of fucked up, would you judge me?”

“Never. You know that.”

Katara nodded, and she let out a breath. “Sometimes I think that the only reason he holds onto me so hard is because I’m the best chance he has at getting airbending babies.” She laughed humorlessly, and the hollowness of it sent shivers up his spine. “Do you know how much fucking pressure it is to think that the fate of an entire culture rests in your uterus?”

That knocked the wind out of him. Of course, he’d had his suspicions about their future, had always wondered whether the thought had ever crossed her mind, and now he knew. “That’s a lot of fucking pressure for a seventeen-year-old to bear.”

“Exactly.” She looked down at her tea, sighing. With a flick of his hand, he re-heated it for her, and she smiled gratefully at him, her face looking too tired for someone who wasn’t even an official adult yet.

“I don’t want to have to become someone’s wife, someone’s _mother_ , before I even know who I am. If he had it his way, this”—she motioned to the shabby hotel room—“would all just be a story we told our kids to pass the time on Appa. Their mother, the once great Painted Lady.” Katara sighed. “I don’t want to give up everything I am because his life somehow matters more than mine.”

“It doesn’t,” he protested vehemently. “Katara, it really doesn’t. We won this goddamn war so we could have as much time as we wanted, the freedom that we wanted. Though I guess neither one of us got that much.”

They both shared a laugh this time, and she sagged in her seat. “Do you think it’s selfish? I want to be a mother eventually. I always have. Just...not yet. Not now.”

“That’s not selfish at all. It’s rational, completely reasonable, Katara.” 

She tugged on the end of her damp hair. “Other people already introduce me as ‘the Avatar’s girlfriend.’ I don’t want to go down in history as just ‘the Avatar’s wife’ or ‘mother of the next generation of airbenders.’” Her jaw clenched again. “Any of the acolytes would jump at the chance, but I don’t want it.”

“So don’t. We still have time to figure it out. In the meantime...I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a few more nights like this.” 

Zuko gestured around again, and though it was only a shabby hotel, there was a fondness in Katara’s eyes that brightened up the space. “You sure you won’t have to produce heirs in the next few years?” Katara asked. “I don’t think you can dash across rooftops with a baby strapped to your back.”

The image made him grimace. “I mean, probably, if you asked the Fire Sages. I’m not going to sit here and tell you the assassination attempts don’t worry me.”

Katara winced at that, no doubt remembering having to rush to the Fire Nation three months ago to heal him after an intruder managed to sneak in and put a poison knife in his ribs before Zuko could subdue him. “You’re under even more time pressure than I am,” she pointed out.

It was Zuko’s turn to give a hollow laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. So heirs are still a few years off, I guess. Does that make _me_ selfish, ending it with Mai and throwing a wrench into their plans for me?”

“No. I think it makes you brave.”

“Maybe. Stupid, definitely.”

“Some might say that, sure. But I’ve always thought you were a dummy, so this is no different.”

Zuko gave her the finger, and she stuck her tongue out at him. “So knowing all that...got any plans for the next few years?”

“I think I have a few nights to spare.” Katara grinned, holding up her cup. “To continued mischief in the name of the common good.”

He smirked and toasted her. “To figuring out who we are without answering to anyone else.”

“To a little more time.”

“To dealing with our own life before we create any other.”

Katara swallowed and nodded. Her blue eyes burned into his then, an intensity he wasn’t expecting for the lightness of the conversation. “To us. To this. Always.”

Zuko would’ve thought she was a firebender by the way her words set his veins a flame. Zuko held her gaze, and the words were raspy, heavy with everything he felt but couldn’t voice, couldn’t explain. “To us. To this. Always.”

iii. _i promised myself i wouldn’t let you complete me_

The last night, it’s by necessity, but not really. They just tell themselves that in order to get roaring drunk at an inn on the five-year anniversary of Jet’s death.

That was what they called it in their letters, and Katara knew why. She didn’t want to talk about how it was only a short time before Zuko betrayed her, broke her heart in the glow of the crystal catacombs, showed her that no amount of kindness and care could change a person who hadn’t decided to change themselves.

Zuko had always stumped her, made her rethink everything she’d believed, twisted her brain until it was something new, something better. He held her head in his hands, her mind in a death grip.

She told herself that because that had to be the reason it had been her idea to disguise themselves, take on different names, and go bar crawling in the Middle Ring.

They were both in Ba Sing Se to hash out the plans for Republic City with the Earth King, and Katara had been surprised how smooth the process had been. She and Aang still worked well together, even after their breakup a year ago.

If she was being honest with herself, her conversation with Zuko that night two years ago had been the catalyst for her self-discovery, and her desire to find herself had only grown after that, until her body and soul was too big to fit in the confines of her role as the Avatar’s girlfriend. It had taken quite a few tearful, angry conversations with Aang before he’d agreed to let her go, and they’d gone a few months without speaking before the plans for the United Republic had brought them back in contact. It was funny, she thought, how uniting the world’s nations had patched their friendship up as well, and she was grateful for every tentative smile they shared, every shared laugh and peaceful discussion at trade routes and updates on the reconstruction about the Air Temples.

Aang would always be an important part of her life, no matter how big her bones grew and how much of the world she came to call her own.

If she was being honest, though, someone else was quickly taking up space in her brain, her heart.

“Lee! I need to go back to the room,” she slurred after the fourth bar and the fifth round of shots, gesturing in what she figured was the direction of their inn. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Zuko stumbled off the curb, and she giggled at how much clumsier he grew after each round. For someone so stealthy and elegant in combat, he couldn’t walk a flat surface without tripping while sober, and this was so endearing it filled her heart with fondness.

Katara told herself it was for her benefit that she wound her arm through his, but she was leaning against him just as much as he was her, and hadn’t that always been the case?

Tripping down the street, their combined gaits like walking on marbles, they made their way to the inn, giggling all the while.

It took a few tries for Katara to get the key into the lock because she kept getting distracted by Zuko singing an old Fire Nation lullaby while using the wall to support himself, and she finally wrenched open the door. 

“Yes!” she cheered, punching her fist in the air and pulling him inside, flinging him into the room as she locked the door.

Zuko stumbled across the room, yanking off his shirt as he went. “I think he would’ve liked this, what we did,” he said, muffled from his head tangled in the fabric. Finally getting it off, he tossed it onto the table. 

“He would’ve been with us, and we would’ve thrown up in the street because of how much he would’ve made us drink. Can you imagine?” Too drunk to give a fuck, she untied her tunic, noting how he sat heavily on the bed, already divested of his pants, and watched her pull her dress off with a hunger in his eyes that he didn’t bother to disguise.

“He would’ve tried to goad us into a threesome, definitely.”

Katara still had enough sense to blush as she sat beside him, falling onto her back. “It’s fucked that this is all just speculation based on how little time we spent with him.”

“Tell me about it.” He gave a throaty chuckle as he lay back to lean his head on his palm. “At least you got to spend a few days with him. I fell in love with him after a food raid and a makeout session in a ferry broom closet.”

Katara laughed at the ceiling. “I always knew you were a romantic. So am I.” Katara thought about it. “I catch feelings too easily. I don’t even fall in love. I just catch feelings and then they go away. Like whoosh.” She moved her hand through the air like it was a bird in flight.

He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t love Jiang?”

Katara smiled at the mention of the pretty brunette she’d dated for a few months a year after she and Aang broke up. She had spent some time in the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se after a few months of overseeing the reconstruction in the South, needing a change of pace and position, and she was all too happy to negotiate trade routes and wrangle funds and supplies out of the Earth King. To be honest, she also needed the time to explore the part of herself that craved the softness of a woman’s curves, their full lips, their gentle but firm hands, and she couldn’t do that in the South, where everyone had known her from birth and half of them still thought of her as only the Avatar’s girlfriend. 

She hadn’t expected to get into a full-blown relationship so soon after Aang. She had thought she’d date her way through Ba Sing Se, bounce from one bed to another, but of course, her heart didn’t work like that. Jiang had entranced her, with her pretty light green eyes and her brunette bob, her love for her art and knowledge of social reform.

Her soft, full breasts that fit perfectly in Katara’s hands had been a plus as well. Before she knew it, she was spending nights with Jiang’s head between her thighs and her hand between Jiang’s legs. It had been stress relief and self-discovery, learning the way her heart had opened up to her. It wasn’t something she’d felt before, an attraction to a complete stranger that hadn’t suffered beside her in a war.

But in the end that had been their downfall.

If Aang had known too much about her, Jiang didn’t know enough. She was the first person Katara had dated who hadn’t known her before the end of the war. She was a fresh start, yes, and Katara thought that maybe she’d found what she was looking for, a chance to shed her skin.

But something was missing. Her old self was missing, and it took dating someone who didn’t know _that_ Katara to make realize how much she still _loved_ that Katara.

It was too big a part of her to explain to someone who hadn’t experienced it with her, and the comfort Jiang tried to offer when she woke up crying from nightmares wasn’t enough. 

She didn’t want to forget, and that realization had rocked her. She didn’t want to lose that part of herself. 

So she’d spent months alone after she and Jiang had broken up, stitching together those pieces of herself.

“I liked her, yeah. But I wasn’t in love with her. Couldn’t be, not after...after everything.” Katara laughed, rubbing her forehead and put her palm over her eyes. Zuko reached over and patted the top of her head as though in assistance. “Why can’t I love anyone who hasn’t fucking fought beside me? Doesn’t know the scars, doesn’t know why I have them…”

Zuko was quiet, and she pulled her hand away to see him staring at her, his golden gaze surprisingly steady. “Do you ever...do you ever just wish someone would touch them? All of them. And know what they mean.”

There was a tightness in Katara’s throat as she realized just how true that was. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s exactly how I felt. She touched them, but she didn’t, she didn’t…” Touch them like they were holy. Touch them like they were the moments where she had been torn open and her body had stitched itself back together. Kiss them like they were evidence that whatever had tried to kill her had failed. 

“Did you know…” His voice was throaty, and he cleared it...“that you were only the second person I ever let touch my scar? I didn’t...some people had tried, but it wasn’t—they weren’t—”

He trailed off, and her stomach clenched. “Really?” she whispered.

He nodded wordlessly.

She swallowed, murmuring, “Why did you...why me?”

Zuko shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s just felt...right. Like I knew.”

“Knew what?”

He tipped his head down to look into her eyes. “I don’t...I can’t...Katara.”

“Zuko.” Her lips trembled, and her hand was shaking as she sat up. He followed her, not looking away, as she pressed her hand to the scar on his cheek. 

He leaned into her touch and pressed his face into her palm, letting out a soft groan, his lashes fluttering against her skin as his eyes shut. He opened them again, looked down at her. “I am so sorry. For that day. I shouldn’t have...I should’ve…”

Katara shook her head vehemently. “No, stop. I forgave you, remember? You don’t have to keep apologizing for that. If anything, you helped me realize something really important.”

“What?”

“You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. I tried that with Jet, and it didn’t work, and I felt like I wasn’t enough. But the fact that you didn’t switch sides after the catacombs…” She bit her lip. “It almost...almost made the moment when you did join us feel more meaningful, does that make sense? Like you decided it for yourself.”

Zuko looked far away in thought, and he nodded slowly. “I did, didn’t I? I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

Katara nodded. “In a way, I guess it took the pressure off me to be the one to help everyone. You were the first person who bested me in that way.” She smirked.

Zuko laughed. “Anytime. You bested me too, you know. Showed me kindness when you didn’t have to. That confused the hell out of me. It still does. How we manage to do this—” he gestured between them, her laying there in only her wrappings and him in only his sleep pants, and she flushed--“after everything, it just...Katara, it feels like a miracle sometimes.”

Her breath left her then, escaping through her parted lips. “Zuko,” she murmured because no one had ever looked at her the way he was looking at her now, golden eyes burning in the candle light.

Zuko held her gaze, but his throat bobbed as he asked, “I don’t want to presume anything. But I can...I can touch them. Your scars/ If you’d like. If you need someone you trust to—to—”

Katara hesitated. Where would this lead? He was her best friend, and she didn’t want to complicate that.

But she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would only take things as far as she was willing to, at the pace she was willing to, so she said, “Okay. Yeah.”

And then his hands were on her, and she was having a hard time remembering why she was holding back.

He was gentle, starting at her legs and moving up. His fingers ghosted over the scars at her ankles, and she shivered as he caressed her knees. It felt wrong to not do this with him, so she asked, “Can I touch yours?”

Zuko was nodding before she even finished the sentence, and she hummed. Her hands went, of course, to the scar on his chest, the spot she knew the best, and the abdominal muscles twitched beneath her hands as he sucked in a breath.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, about to pull away, but he stopped her and held her hand there. He shook his head quickly. 

“No, not at all. It feels...good. Keep going.”

So she did. He didn’t have nearly as many burn marks as she had expected, but he had the white lines of clean cuts from blades scattered through the skin of his arms. She traced the scars on his hands with her fingertips, the minute burns on his fingers, before continuing up his arms to grip his biceps. He flexed for her, unconsciously or not, and she squeezed, tracing pink scars and white lines.

His hands on hers were dizzying, as he moved them up her torso, to fresh bruises and healing ones, raised gashes against her ribs from fights innumerable. She shivered under his hands, and his eyes flicked up to her. “Is this okay?”

She nodded jerkily. “Yes. Just sensitive. Keep going.”

She herself started tracing his sides, eliciting the same shivers and a groan that slipped out of his lips. She traced down his abs, letting herself touch parts of him that didn’t have scars just because she wanted to know what the hard planes of him felt like under her palms. His stomach quivered as she ventured lower, against the light dusting of dark hair trailing down to his waistband, but she didn’t go any lower. 

In gentle retaliation, he moved his hands to her collarbones, the raised lumps just beneath them from shards of rock and stray ice in battle. His thumb against the bone made her whimper, and his eyes searched her face hungrily.

But still he didn’t move to touch any covered part of her, and she was grateful. This already felt more intimate than anything she’d done, and she worried she’d explode if it got anymore heavy.

They started gravitating closer to each other when she started tracing his back, and he hers, and their touches grew feverish until they were pressed together in the bed, on their sides in each other’s arms. Katara pressed her cheek to his chest, soothed by his heartbeat and the heat of his skin, and he buried his face in her hair. They pulled each other in, fingers denting skin as they held each other.

Katara wanted to sob at the weight of it all. He touched her like he saw her, all of her, and that’s when it hit her.

In all her travels, she had been trying to reconcile who she wanted to be. Old Katara, new Katara. But it was always here, with him, that she realized she felt the most herself. An amalgamation of every girl she’d ever been, every girl she’d ever be. He had seen her float between all of them, supported her, witnessed and encouraged all of them.

It has always been her, in that hotel room with him. She just hadn’t seen it. Every version of herself that she loved had always come full circle when she was here. She had just never realized it.

They lay like that, breathing against each other, not speaking. He extinguished the candles, and he was the first to fall asleep, but Katara lay awake, staring at the moonlight coming in through the window.

Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes, dropping onto his skin, and she let them slip out of her. She had never wanted to fall in love with him, but somehow every part of her had, and now her heart was waiting for her brain to catch up and do something about it. She cried because she mourned the loss of time, and she cried because she knew she’d needed that time alone, that time to herself, that time to grow, that time to learn herself anew.

She cried because laying here with him felt like coming home, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Zuko was the Fire Lord, and he needed a Fire Lady, and was she ready for that?

She was ready for _him_ , though, and she had always known she could be a force, a leader. Give her a crown and she’d give her life for the pursuit of goodness and truth. 

She cried because she knew it would be difficult, she knew there would be pressure, and she cried because she was already imagining a life with him without even knowing how he felt, and it was so unlike her, to fall without knowing there was a net to catch her.

But after all this time, she knew she was ready to jump.

iv. _i’m sorry but i fell in love tonight_

After that night at the inn, Katara accompanied Zuko back to the Fire Nation. This had been their plan from the start, that she’d spend some time in his court before heading back to the South Pole, but after what they had shared, he couldn’t help but wonder if this time would be different.

He was both wrong and right. 

Zuko had never been so conscious of the way they touched, even though it wasn’t any more or less than usual. He had been touch-starved, and she knew that about him, and she was touch-dependent, and he knew that about her, so they had always touched whenever they could. It was always innocent, the leaning of their shoulders against each other when they needed comfort, an elbow to the ribs when they were making fun of each other, a hand laid over the other’s for encouragement. It was normal for them.

But this time, it felt like each touch electrified him, every smile stoked a fire within him, every playful wink she sent him across a crowded room was analyzed and picked apart in a way he’d never done before. It was intoxicating, the newfound gravity of their connection.

After meetings, they spent hours holed up in his study, studying documents in silence and passing brushes back and forth. Zuko’s heart ached with the domesticity of it as he watched her now, the end of a brush stuck between her teeth and her brow furrowed as she examined the universal healthcare agreement he’d asked her to review. A fire glowed in the fireplace beside her, lighting her up in gold, and he was warm from more than just the flame. 

He couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have her here all the time, for his study to become their study, to fight beside her for the betterment of the nation every day, to fall asleep beside her every night. He wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything, with a ferocity that scared him. When had this girl pushed and pulled her way into his heart, made a place for herself in his life that no one else could possibly fill?

Speaking of which—

There was a knock at his door, and he called for them to enter. Hiro, his head advisor, entered with a bow, and Zuko wanted to groan as he noticed the thick set of folders he was holding. “My Lord, Master Katara. I didn’t mean to disturb you, but the Sages have just delivered this set of—”

This was the last thing he wanted Katara to hear. He leapt up from his desk, crossing the room. He could feel her eyes on him as he went, no doubt noticing the sudden movement and the flush on his cheeks. “Thank you, Hiro. You’re dismissed for the night.”

“Would you like me to give the Sages an estimate as to when you’ll be ready to discuss the—”

Did _never_ work for them? “No,” he snapped, taking the folders from him. “I’ll discuss them when I’m ready.”

Hiro didn’t even bat an eye at his growl. He already knew Zuko’s thoughts on the subject, and he didn’t need to be told again. He bowed again. “Good night, Young One.”

“Good night, Advisor.” 

Hiro made his way out, closing the door behind him, and Zuko turned around, studiously avoiding Katara’s questioning gaze. He put the folders down on his desk and decided to distract her. “Did you get to the section on—”

“What was that about?”

Zuko internally cursed. Of course it didn’t work. It never did. She wouldn’t be Katara if she didn’t read him like a book every time. “Nothing. Just the Sages being Sages.”

Her blue eyes were unrelenting. “That’s not evasive at all.”

He sighed. If he didn’t tell her, she would just keep asking. “They’re...potential candidates. For the position of Fire Lady.”

Katara froze, and he couldn’t help but notice the way her spine stiffened, her jaw clenching slightly. “You mean for your wife.”

“Yes, I suppose.” He rubbed the back of his neck, a flush making its way up his chest.

“There’s nothing supposed about it. The Fire Sages don’t seem to think so, at least.”  
Zuko scoffed. “The Fire Sages have been asking me for an heir practically since I took the throne. They’re...getting a bit impatient.”

Katara eyed the tall stack of folders. “A bit,” she muttered, and he raised his eyebrows at the disdain in her voice.

“And they’re all from the Fire Nation?” she asked, her voice surprisingly even for the way she was glaring at the files. If she was a firebender, the pile would’ve been reduced to ashes by now. His heart swelled with hope, a fire that she had always lit in him. 

“Mostly, but not all. There are a few women from some prominent families in the Earth Kingdom as well. An international marriage would help strengthen ties with the other nations,” he added, hoping she couldn’t see what he’d imagined ever since Hiro had brought it up. 

He loved her. He wanted her. But he loved her most when she was living her life for herself, and he wanted her to have everything she wanted, even if that meant everything and everyone but him. What had always seemed to make her the happiest was when she was free, roaming the world alone, helping everyone she could without ties to any one place. He couldn’t hold her down, not to this place that had taken so much from her.

Zuko almost wanted to apologize. He was in pain because he fell in love with the ocean, and the ocean didn’t belong to one shore, not one city, and certainly not one man. He wanted to say he was sorry for wanting her to stay.

She had always been a hurricane, and he wanted, more than anything, to stay in her path.

Katara’s stare was calculating, and she looked away. He searched her face, but she just stared down at the brush in her hands, twirling it idly between her fingers, lost in thought. He waited, breathless, until finally she looked up. “I—I— I need to go.”

His heart stopped, and suddenly he worried that maybe it had never quite recovered after Azula because he certainly felt like he was about to die. “Go?”

She stood up, dropping the brush on the counter. Her hand was shaking, and he reached for her, but she pulled away and stood up. “I need to—I need to be alone. Full moon, and—and this—” 

“Katara, why are you—” He couldn’t read her face, couldn’t figure out what the tightness in her eyes meant, and that terrified him. 

He stood up too, but she just shook her head as she crossed the room. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Zuko.”

And then she was gone, his heart in his hands, and he watched her leave, the echo in his chest sounding like her name as she walked away.

But it was that night, when he heard the splashing outside his window, that he knew it was time they had a talk.  
Sure enough, when he emerged onto the balcony, he saw a figure in his private garden, illuminated by the moon, looking for all the world like a statue carved by Tui and La themselves, bending in the fountain.

Zuko couldn’t be bothered to use the door. He was half-crazed with hope and didn’t even bother to grab a tunic or shoes as he scaled down the balcony, dropping down into the gardens a few feet from the fountain. He padded across the space, the grass soft and silent under his feet, as he watched her bending under the full moon in only her wrappings. She hadn’t been at it for very long, as her hair wasn’t damp and her wrappings had only a few drops on them, and he was grateful that she hadn’t been waiting long for him.

He had already wasted enough time.

“I can sense you, you know,” she said, not stopping and not looking at him.

He smiled and continued forward, knowing she could feel the way his heart picked up. “The fact that you know my heartbeat is endearing.”

“Of course I do.” Katara dropped the water back in the fountain and turned around to look at him, crossing her arms under her breasts. He refused to let his eyes drop, fixing her with a steady stare. “I restarted it, remember?”

“How could I forget?” He gave her a sad half-smile, which she returned. “Katara, I—”

Katara shook her head quickly. “No, I—I need to get this out now. Please, let me.”

It was the soft, pleading please that stopped him at the lip of the fountain, and he murmured, “Okay.”

Katara took a deep, shuddering breath, and when she looked up at him, her blue eyes glowed intensely. They were steady as she said, “I’ve been everywhere, you know.”

Zuko blinked. “Um, yeah. You’ve traveled a lot in the last few years.” He’d never tell her, but he had a map in his office marked with everywhere she’d been, from the letters she’d sent him along the way. He was going to frame it and give it to her this year as a winter solstice gift.

Katara nodded, biting her lip and releasing it. “I’ve seen many things, many people, but...Zuko, I’ve been searching for something in all those places, and I couldn’t find it.”

Zuko’s brow furrowed. “But I thought...you seemed so happy.”

“I was. It made me happy, to be alone and to see everywhere by myself and make a name for myself, by myself. But Zuko...there was something else I was looking for, and I didn’t know it until now. But now I can’t look away from it.”

His lips were numb. What was she trying to say? 

“Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve looked for myself, and I couldn’t find her until I realized that—that there wasn’t a place on Earth I could find her but inside of me. And now that I know that...I can’t help but feel like I don’t need to run anymore.”

Katara sank to her knees in the fountain, and he did the same outside of it. At this angle, she was a little taller than him, and she loomed over him, with the full moon lighting her up from behind like a halo. She looked like the most powerful deity, and he felt his lips part as she pressed her hand to his cheek. “Zuko, you are the only one who has made me feel okay about all the parts of who I am. You saw me, not as parts, but as a whole, not just as who I’ve been, or who I’ve become. You didn’t try to find me for me, but you held my hand as I looked for myself.”

He was frozen under the cool touch of her hand, on his knees before the beautiful, flawed goddess who had blessed his life with her temper, her ferocity, her unrelenting kindness. His hand came up to caress her wrist, unable to look away from her. “Katara,” he murmured. “I can’t—I can’t take you away from your life. I don’t want to hold you back. I can’t—”

She gave a watery laugh, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “You beautiful, selfless, noble boy. Of course you can’t. You can’t hold me anywhere I don’t want to be.” 

She swept her thumb over his lips, and they parted for her, steam washing over the skin of her hand as she lingered, tugging on the bottom. “I decide where I go. I decide who I’m with. And I want to be here. With you. If you’ll have me.”

“Katara...you know what this means, don’t you?” Zuko had to be sure. He had to know that she understood what it meant to stay, how much he wanted her, and for how long. “If we do this...I don’t want to have to let you go. Being with me, it’s…” He gestured back to the palace. “Complicated. You’d have to be the Fire Lady—”

Katara grinned, unphased. “Are you proposing?”

Zuko flushed. “I haven’t had time to carve a necklace or forge a ring, but…If you’d like, I can—”

She interrupted him with another laugh, pulling him closer. “Zuko, I don’t have to be anything. I want to be with you. For as long as you want me.”

“What if I want you forever?” he whispered the words as he drew closer.

She grinned with all her teeth, and she whispered the words into his lips. “Then I’m yours. Always.”

He didn’t have time to linger over the words because her lips were on his, breathing life into him, and he let go of her wrist to grip her full hips, the warmth of her skin through her wrappings burning his palms.

But her lips were cool, calming, a balm over the intense burn of her eyes and words, and he shivered as she ran her hands over his chest, palming at his scar, before he felt her tugging him forward.

He stumbled over the lip of the fountain, barely catching himself on the tiles underneath the water as she laid back gracefully, her hands insistent on his back as she pulled him closer still. He didn’t want to break away from her lips, so he clambered over the side clumsily until he was on top of her in the water.

Katara stared up at him, grinning as she lay under the surface. Her wraps were wet, and her dark nipples stood at attention under the fabric, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her face for long. Her face was hungry, her eyes gleaming like she’d stolen the stars from the sky. She put her hand on his scar again, and this time when she swept her thumb over his lips, he parted them for her and breathed a light flame over the skin. Her jaw went slack, her eyes glazed over with desire, as he soothed the burn over with his tongue, wrapping his lips around her thumb and sucking lightly.

Katara groaned and pressed her hips insistently again. “Zuko, please,” she whimpered breathlessly.

He released her thumb, and she whined. “Will you stay?” he asked, dipping his head to hover over her lips. “Be honest.”

Katara’s gaze was serious, steady. “I’m here. I’m staying. For as long as you’ll have me.”

“Even if that’s forever?”

“ _Especially_ if that’s forever.”

Zuko didn’t wait. He couldn’t, not when her eyes were begging him but her hand was on the back of his neck, letting him know exactly who was in control here.

He didn’t care. He had always known, anyway. So he let her pull him in, their kiss a dance of tongue and teeth, and in his palace, surrounded by her element, the sun and the moon became one behind his eyes, and his sky had never felt more complete.

**Author's Note:**

> I will challenge you for the title of biggest Halsey stan. Don't test me.
> 
> I'll see y'all on Tuesday with an LBAT update. In the meantime, comments and kudos keep me going, so if you love it or hate it, lmk! Love y'all! <3


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